After we finished breakfast, we headed to Versailles. The Palace of Versailles is about 30 minutes from Paris.
We walked about 10 minutes from our hotel to take the RER train to Versailles. It was a rainy, dreary day in Paris, but that wasn't stopping us. We bought umbrellas and continued on our way.
Buying tickets to get on the RER train was...interesting. The machine where we were supposed to buy tickets wasn't working. People were impatiently waiting behind us and there was no one that actually worked at the station to help us. There was a little store in the train station that sold drinks and snacks, so I went to talk to the attendant and see if she could help us get tickets. She barely spoke English. Awesome!! She finally understood what I was asking and threw her hands up and said, "it's free today, just go in.". Alrighty then. So we just walked right in and everyone else that was also trying to buy tickets followed us.
We had just missed the RER train and had to wait about 30 minutes for another one to come. Michael's asthma started bothering him and he didn't have his inhaler, so he decided to go back to the hotel. We were trying to make sure we were going to get on the right train, going the right way, and met a really nice couple from the US who told us we were doing the right thing.
We finally got on the RER and headed to Versailles. The RER train was 2 stories tall.
Once we got off the RER, we had about a 10 minute walk, still in the rain, to get to the Palace.
Here is it:
It was unbelievable how huge it is! I also couldn't get over how ornate the outside was.
All the pictures of the outside were taken with my cell phone because I didn't want my big camera to get wet.
It was only drizzling at this point so we put our umbrellas down to snap a quick picture.
Then we made our way inside. We bought tickets online in advance so we were able to skip the ticket line, which was very nice!
Versailles was originally a hunting lodge built by Louis XIII in 1624. He began expanding it and it was further expanded into the Palace it is today by Louis XIV. It is crazy to think that this was built so long ago and is so ornate.
This is the first room we saw:
They had a bunch of these models set up showing the entire estate.
There were rooms and rooms full of paintings.
Also lots of paintings of people. They had interesting hair styles back then!
This is the same room that I posted about first, except this time we were looking at it from upstairs. We got a better view of the beautiful ceiling.
A huge fireplace in one of the living rooms.
A bedroom.
The dining room was so gorgeous! Look at all of the chandeliers.
Mary and Gary in the dining room.
Another bedroom.
Steve and Stephen
I loved the black and white floor, the stone and the light fixtures.
This marble railing on the staircase was beautiful! Everything inside this Palace was beautiful!
One of the things I was most looking forward to when planning our trip to Versailles were the gardens. They are beautiful and immaculately kept. I couldn't wait to walk around them and take pictures. But the rain had other plans for us. I did get some pictures while we were walking around inside of the Palace, but they are not very good since they are through windows that have water on them. I guess we will just have to go back one day to see the gardens!
Right before we left I ran outside to snap the above picture. While I was out there I couldn't get over just how huge the Palace was. The below picture is just one small wing of the Palace.
I did take two pictures with my big camera outside as we were leaving, but they didn't turn out very well. In addition to not getting good pictures of the gardens, I was really bummed about not getting good pictures of the outside. Another reason we have to visit Paris again!
The cobblestone streets were VERY hard to walk on in the rain and in flip flops. I should have worn my tennis shoes this day! I got the worst blisters that stayed with me our entire trip.
It was raining hard when we were leaving the Palace. We had to walk with our umbrellas covering our faces or would have been soaked.
As we got to the end of the Palace grounds, I looked back to take one more picture of the beautiful Palace.
We took the RER back to Paris and walked back over the Seine river to our hotel. We caught a little glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. Can you see it in this picture?
The bridge we walked over had locks on it. There are two famous bridges that lovers put locks on in Paris. This wasn't one of them. We will get to those bridges tomorrow, but I still thought these locks were neat so I snapped a picture.
We went back to the hotel to rest some and freshen up for dinner.
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